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Creamed Cabbage

A cabbage dish cooked with water, salt, cream, flour, pepper, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Creamed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the cabbage

  1. In a saucepan, combine shredded cabbage, water, and salt.

  2. Boil until tender, then drain well.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Stir flour into the cream, then add to the cabbage.

  2. Boil until creamy.

  3. Season with pepper and vinegar before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Cabbage + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together978 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish and becomes tender when boiled.
Cream
Provides richness and a smooth, creamy texture when simmered.
Flour
Thickens the cream so it clings to the cabbage.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that balances the richness of the cream.

The step that matters

Boil until creamy. Once flour is stirred into the cream, it must be boiled so the starch swells and thickens the sauce. Undercooked flour leaves a raw, pasty taste and a thin sauce.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, flour, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, flour, pepper, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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